About Us
For over 25 years the Cellar Christian Cafe in Godalming's Crown Court has served the local community. The Cafe is open to everyone in the area and also provides a friendly meeting place where people with problems can meet and discuss them amongst themselves and with our staff and volunteer helpers. For those in need, being a non-threatening environment, it provides accepting love, a sense of belonging to an extended family where joys and sorrows are shared. Help can be asked for without a sense of embarrassment. People of all faiths and none are encouraged to visit the Cellar and take part in activities with no strings attached. There is an atmosphere of acceptance. Openness, hope, fun and friendship offered to all.
Over the years the Cellar has opened its arms to many different disadvantaged or misunderstood groups of people in the community: squatters, people with drug or alcohol problems, unmarried mothers and single parents, the unemployed, the homeless and people who have suffered breakdowns or serious illness have been helped. The Cellar has always provided a listening ear and prayerful support to their problems. A free simple meal is always available to any who come in need, and at Christmas time about 25 food parcels are distributed to known needy families.
Every Tuesday morning at 9am, staff and some supporters gather to review and pray over matters of concern. All are welcome and many different churches in the town are represented. It is a great opportunity to join in and contribute to the prayers for the sick and those in need within the community at large.
This small business is helped with extra funding from local people who are ‘Friends of the Cellar’, donations from churches and other organisations within the town, special efforts such as cake stalls, sale of ice-cream at the series of open-air Band Concerts and some Fairs locally, and in kind at Christmas and Harvest, as well as provision of home made cakes on a regular basis and voluntary work in the Cellar. Beyond this there is an on-going process of making applications to grant-making charities and trust funds on a wider scale.
